


This Great Living

by Cas_203



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: As in only referenced or implied, Child Abuse, Coming Out, Emotional Abuse, Feelings, Fluff, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempts, LGBTQ Character, Language, Mental Health Issues, Minor Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, OFC - Freeform, OMC - Freeform, Physical Abuse, Protective Harry, Protective Liam, Protective Louis, Protective Niall, Protective Zayn, Rape Recovery, Sexual Abuse, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Underage Rape/Non-con, at some point hehe, heavily discussed actually, lotsa hugs at some point dw, pansexual representation, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24034270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cas_203/pseuds/Cas_203
Summary: She’s sitting on Louis’ bed in an oversized t-shirt and leggings, tears still drying on her face, and she knows how she must look- all of fifteen years old and so goddamn jaded already, dollar store masking tape and safety pins holding her together, but the truth is-“You’ve all been too good to me, Louis. I don’t-“ she breathes, “I can’t deserve it.”And he smiles, something soft and careful and completely big-brother, and he says, “If you don’t deserve it, Love, then who the hell does?”—Or- One Direction, but with a fifteen year old girl who’s suffered through far too much thrown into the midst (cue five self-proclaimed, dedicated protectors).
Relationships: Mercy (OFC)/OMC
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my lovely frens. I hope this rewrite of ‘Mercy Bled onto Us’ (with a few things adapted and some taken completely out of the equation), finds you well in these weird times. Just so you know, you totally don’t need to have read that to make sense of this; I’m starting from scratch.
> 
> It’s been over a year since I’ve posted on here, so now you have me in all my sixteen-year-old glory trying to give justice to my OFC (who I’m way too emotionally attached to, btw) while also attempting to give an appropriate amount of weight to the harrowing topics involved and a part of this fic, and ALSO trying to stay uh. Lit. I think that was the correct way of using that term?
> 
> Please, please, please do read the tags and think of your own well being before reading, and also let me know should I have missed or misrepresented something in my writing itself.
> 
> aLsO, I hope this can provide some semblance of comfort. It’ll get dark at times, but this fic will ultimately be one of hope and finding your light among your people (specifically, Mercy finding her light among her people). Family doesn’t always end up being blood. 
> 
> The title is taken from Keaton Henson’s masterpiece, ‘The Pugilist’. Further, I must proclaim that I do not own, nor do I have any affiliations with, the members (or previous members, in the case of Zayn:/) of One Direction, Modest Management, The X Factor or any other related or living people or organisations mentioned/referenced in this lil’ thing.
> 
> Stay safe, stay well, and enjoy the ride (I hope?).
> 
> (For artistic purposes™️, all the boys have been aged up by two years- at the start of The X Factor, they are shown as 17-20 year olds).

“ _Boys_.”

A beat.

“ _Mercy_.”

She stands straighter (does not think ‘ **I’m going home, back home to him, I’m going home**.’).

“ _I would like to put you all into a group_.”

And then there is fire crawling under her skin, sprouting roots and burrowing itself inside her veins- as if pain belonged there ( **pain belonged there**.), as if she was worthy of acting as refuge to something as bright as flame ( **she was not worthy of acting as refuge to something as bright as flame** ).

Abruptly, uncalled and unwelcome, unfeeling metastasises, her heart numb until there are boyish hands on her shoulders, until she is pulled in to breath t-shirts and there is pressure, and she thinks ‘ **oh, this is a hug** ’ and ‘ **don’t startle, don’t flinch, don’t give it away** ’, and these were five boys she was destined to stand in front of the world with, an unconventional group of makeshift conventionality, and they didn’t know, did they? She was damned, tainted, something twisted and unworthy and-

“ _Guys, you’ve been a band for three weeks now. Any interesting realisations, fun things you’ve learnt to look out for in one another? Louis?_ ”

“ _Well, I mean, this little one here- she’s the most innocent thing you’ll ever meet, I swear. We’ve all learnt to look out for her, I’d say, or I don’t doubt she’d end up in some trouble!_ ”

She allows a ringed hand to rise, shove lightly at the boy ( **man, Louis was a man, too much of a man** ) standing next to her as an act of fifteen year old defiance, a quiet ‘ _shut up_ ’ and a near-silent ‘ _I’m not innocent_ ’, and they all take it as jest, as weightless insistence, but it is true. Innocence had never defined her; innocence was a doll thrown down stars in fits of anger, the single tear allowed to fall after _he_ had left the room, innocence was- innocence _was_.

It had not been for a long time.

“ _Mercy, you’ve got this, alright? We’ve all got this. One more show that counts, and we give it our all, and then we can rest. Then you can go home for a bit, see your dad, yeah?_ ”

Zayn had been soft smiles, constant companionship, careful touches and trigger-less breaths until that night, and it breaks her. It tears stutters from her jugular into the phone-call home after they lose, a litany of apologies falling like prayers from an infidel as she begs her father to understand, to see that she had not meant to stumble on her lines (it had simply been that Zayn was wrong, and going home would never have meant rest, and his words had meant that for a moment-on that vast, endless stage- **she could not breathe** ).

Her father does not understand.

“ _Hey, you alright? You’ve been weird since we got signed today. Withdrawn._ ”

Mercy does not deny Harry’s words, nor does she acknowledge them. She simply pulls her ( **Niall’s** ) jacket tighter around her shoulders and turns her head into Liam’s, not careful enough to keep old bruises concealed under shirt sleeves. She does not commit the indignity of lying to the boys ( **and the men, Louis and even Zayn twenty and old enough to be men** ), and saves face in a faked yawn because _this_ \- this was easier, this game of pretend, in which they saw her okay for what it never had been.

In which they saw through the cracks, maybe- perhaps caught the purpled bruises peaking from her wrists- and did not question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, and there you have the first prologue-ey bit.
> 
> I really hope you didn’t hate it, lemme know down below?
> 
> Seriously, please shout at me in the comments. I’m attention starved and actually have not written in ages, so would love some feedback!
> 
> Also, have love and light and pineapples because we all need some at the moment, I think.


	2. The Decency Of Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shutting her eyes against the harsh sunlight, Mercy breathed in the scent of too-new car and listened to her own staccato heartbeat, and she thought about how it could’ve been a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here you have it, frens- the first official chapter of this project.
> 
> I hope Mercy’s story ends up meaning something to you.

Their first momentous interview as a signed band was on a Thursday.

Cacophonous voices singing an off-key rendition of ‘Mr Brightside’ woke Mercy the morning of, and although she turned with half-a-mind to go right back to sleep, Harry barged in, too loud and too awake, “Up, up, up, Mercy!” falling from his lips as he threw her duvet onto the floor and raised both his eyebrows, a poor attempt at playing responsible.

“Mercy,” started the fifteen year old, voice thick from sleep- sleep and something other, and Harry nearly asked, then, if she had been crying, but she cleared her throat and carried on before he could figure out how, “Would really prefer to not be so rudely awaken. “

He grinned.

“Also, please tell everyone who is not you or Louis to go back to their own apartment, please? They’re giving me a headache.”

He almost conceded: “Well, A) No one would have to ‘rudely awaken’ you if you hadn’t slept through your alarm, Merc, and B) you know as well as I do; I can’t make any of the others do anything.”

And that, Mercy later admitted, were some good points. 

Her shower had to be done in haste, shampoo barely washing out of her black, shoulder length hair before Harry called out that she was wasting time **(and, goddammit, but why was he always only on her case?** ). Leaving the bathroom soaked as she tugged on a nondescript hoodie and skinny jeans, she stood in front of the mirror and had barely finished with her make-up ( **make-up done only because she was fifteen and that’s what fifteen year old girls did, not because she had something to hide, not because openly showing mottled bruise at the base of her neck could have been suici-** ) before Louis came in with a quiet knock, shoved a piece of toast into her hands, and ushered her out of the door.

By all accounts and purposes, the day had all the makings of a decent one; there were no heavy voices, you see, and no blatant reminders of _him_ \- no expectant glances and no tightening grips and no searing anger staring possibility into her hazel eyes, no declarations naming her anathema or too woman in her body. There was simply her, five loud boys, a kind driver.

( **And did you figure it out, yet? She was not woman enough, she was not woman at all** ).

Despite earlier appearances, the boys seemed to have had weary eyes and overworked minds- she had known that it was because they soldiered so much, worked longer and harder than her in some abstract need to protect, in some damned attempt at preserving her youth, but she couldn’t quite find it in her to call them out- and conversation quietened too quickly. 

Shutting her eyes against the harsh sunlight, Mercy breathed in the scent of too-new car and listened to her own staccato heartbeat, and she thought about how it could’ve been a good day.

Then she thought about _him_ , anyways. 

She couldn’t not think about him, do you understand? Familiarity had seemed to claim his memory, locked it somewhere inside of her soul and thrown away the key, and she couldn’t _not_ think about him, not with the marks he had left still painting ownership on her body. She couldn’t not think of him even as she smiled at Liam’s quiet voice still humming The Killers, or the way Niall kept throwing wadded balls of tissue at the back of Zayn’s head. She couldn’t not think of the pain, and how his voice never left her dreams, and she couldn’t not think of his hypocrisy, his preaching of responsibility the night she moved into the apartment with Louis and Harry ( **and god, Liam was so young but too similar, sometimes** ). She couldn’t not think of how all of the good in her hands- the light and the boys and the _okay_ \- was an ephemeral piece of heaven, and how she was simply stuck in stasis until he decided to pull her out).

“That’s a shit ton of people, man.”

Startled, Mercy glanced up to where Zayn sat at the front, and then out the window. People- teenagers and children, boys and girls- held up signs, innocent and sincere for the most part, and shouted approval as the car creptto the studio. Policemen and woman, clad in uniform, stood at the sidelines, holding them back. 

“It’s so weird,” and Niall’s breathing was a little fast, so she reached across Harry and squeezed his hand, “That people do this for us, you know?”

They all exchanged quick glances, listening to the screams increase in volume as the car slid to a quiet halt, and Mercy knew that Niall understood what everyone was trying to say.

_ We know. _

“Okay, guys, listen up!” James- a semi-familiar member of their small, temporary security personnel, opened their doors with a shout, “Zayn, Harry, Mercy, Louis, Niall, Liam- that’s the order I want you guys to exit in. No time for photographs, alright?”

Six heads nodded and, thanking the driver, Zayn and Harry walked off, shoulders brushing. Mercy got up and made to leave herself, but the increasing number of avid screamers surrounding the studio building’s doors gave her pause.

James looked at her, gaze expectant, “Mercy, get _inside_ , ‘cause if you simply wanted to stand there and look pretty, you should’ve dressed for it- should’ve shown off those growing curves and played into some teenage boy’s fantasy, Darling,” and that was just-

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Who the fuck says that to a teenage girl, mate? Who the fuck do you think you are?” and that was Louis’s voice, Mercy knew, and that was Liam’s hand guiding her inside and Niall’s hand on her back and strangers declaring eternal love around her and it was _too much_ , too much touch and too much noise and too much anger and her day, _god_ , her day was nowhere near good anymore.

Once inside, she shrugged of Niall and let go of Liam and walked off, dimly aware that she didn’t know where the prep room was.

“Mercy! Merc!”

_ ‘You are mine, and I love you, do you know that? All of you is mine, and I love you.’ _

“Sweetheart, please, where are you going?”

_ ‘Those boys of yours, do they know who you are, really? No, and that’s how it’ll stay, isn’t it? You’ll make us some money, and you’ll be happy, and I’ll always be here, waiting.’ _

“Mercy Carter, for the love of god, would you let us talk to you?”

She turned around, eyes already red rimmed and breath shaky, and she threw herself at Louis (who stood there with the rest of the boys, concern marring his face and his hands slightly extended). Clutching at his T-shirt as if it were some twisted lifeline ( **and he was some twisted lifeline, loud and playful but always serious when needed and always there, and some part of her had learnt to shatter her inhibitions and trust** ), her hands clenched themselves into fists.

“What happened? Louis?” Harry’s voice broke at the end, all teenage boy, and what was she doing _with them_? What the hell did Mercy think _she was doing with them?_

“What happened, Hazza,” started Louis, his arms around her tightening a little as he spoke, “Was that some _perv_ thought it’d be a good idea to test my limits by making some absolutely horrible remarks about our girl here,”

Mercy saw Zayn stiffen in her peripheral, and simply turned her head into Louis’s chest, oddly comforted by his solidity.

“What happened is that that someone was promptly fired, and Mercy, as always, knows,” And Louis gently pushed her away, tilted his head down to look into her eyes, “That- while she is prettier than any of us can ever hope tobe- she is so, so much more than what we see on the outside, and _that much_ more beautiful on the inside.”

(By all accounts and purposes, the day had all the makings of a decent one. Tendrils of anxiety and weighted words tainted it a little, sure, but- by all accounts and purposes- it ended up halfway there). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. Temporarily. For like a week, until the next update :))
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter? Feed me comments and stuff, if you please- lemme know what you think, the ‘good and the bad’ and all that jazz!


End file.
